The present invention relates generally to the field of video recording/transmission and social media. More specifically, the present invention relates to methods, apparatus, and systems for obtaining, verifying, and directing recorded or live video content.
Every day, television stations and professionals involved in video production shoot countless hours of video content using camcorders or other types of external recorders in the field. Some of this content may be streamed live to a television station (or other news venue, website, or the like) using various methods such as cellular based uplink devices, satellites, microwave transmission, or other means. However, the majority of the content will remain on the original camcorder media or recording device until it is physically brought back to the studio (or other production facility) or transferred asynchronously via IP to the studio, which can be a very time consuming process.
Once the original content arrives back in the studio, it rarely provides the end-user (editor or production staff) with details of the recording other than the time of recording (e.g., via a time-stamp) and the user typically must preview the content in order to locate the desired content.
In addition, social media has become an important part of television production and news distribution. In particular, social media has had a large impact on live television production that includes news, sports, weather, live events, entertainment, and more. With audiences having many more choices regarding when and where they choose to get their information, traditional television broadcasters must expand their reach in order to remain competitive for audience attention.
Social media has enabled production staff in the studio (such as anchors, news directors, assignment desk managers, producers, social media desk managers, etc.) or staff in the field (such as production crews, reporters/on-air talent, camerapersons, technical crews, field producers, etc.) to quickly communicate with audiences using popular social media applications such as Twitter, Facebook, Google+ and others. By communicating directly with an audience during a live television production, it is possible to drive viewers immediately to a particular program to watch an event such as a breaking news story.
Also, social media itself has become a valid outlet that competes with traditional providers of news, sports, weather and other time sensitive media. For example, breaking news or live sporting events may be recorded and displayed by individuals on their social media applications in real-time or near real-time. Due to the prevalence of social media applications on smartphones and other electronic devices, it is more likely that a private individual is present at the start of a breaking news story than a traditional news reporter, or that the private individual obtains a certain view or video snippet of a live event that is not obtained by traditional media coverage.
It would be advantageous to enable the ability to search for content based on geographic location and/or time. It would be further advantageous to leverage the use of GPS systems in connection with the storage of metadata information which includes time and geographic information for the video content.
It would also be advantageous if traditional media outlets, such as a news, sports, or weather television channels could leverage social media accounts of individuals to enable the capturing and presentation of live events from social media for presentation via the traditional outlets, enabling almost anyone to contribute content for broadcasting. It would be further advantageous if personnel at the traditional media outlets were enabled to interact with individuals during the process of capturing such live events in order to direct the individual during the recording or presentation of the live events to guide and provide instructions to the individual via a chat function. It would be advantageous if such interaction were enabled via an application that would connect individuals and traditional media outlets and provide compensation to the individuals for their contributions to the traditional media outlets.
The methods, apparatus and systems of the present invention provide the foregoing and other advantages.